1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the recording and reading of data to optical media, and more specifically to methods and systems for recording and reading data to optical media past some software boundary limit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, rewritable DVD discs provide the user with storage capacities of up to 4.3 Gigabytes or more on a single side. This would potentially allow users to store much more data than on conventional CD-ROMs. However, certain limitations on the current reading capability of the rewritable DVD disc does not allow the user to realize this full potential.
As is well known, there are several types of optical media standards to define structure and format on optical media to ensure compatibility across disparate operating systems, components, and devices. One standard that covers rewritable DVD discs is UDF (Universal Disc Format). Working with the UDF operating system however has limitations.
During the operation of reading data from the rewritable DVD disc, the following steps occur. When the DVD is first read the anchor is located. The anchor points to the volume descriptors of the first associated data files. Volume descriptors are in a file system associated with subject data files. Each file system borders its associated data file. Within the file system the volume descriptors point to the file identifiers, which are contained in the file system. The file identifiers point to the associated data files, which have been stored on the disc, with appropriate modifications to an anchor of the first written session, it is possible to write and access more than one session.
A problem occurs once a physical boundary of 4 Gigabytes is crossed. That is to say, some operating systems (e.g., Microsoft Windows™) cannot read a volume descriptor past the 4 Gigabyte physical boundary on the disc. Thus, user data referenced by any volume descriptor written after this point is invisible to the operating system, and thus, data written past this boundary cannot be read. More specifically, volume descriptors written after the 4 Gigabye physical boundary cannot be mounted by the operating system.
For example, the user could be near the 4 Gigabyte physical boundary and then try to write volume descriptors and associated data files after this point. When the operating system attempts to read the post 4 Gigabyte volume descriptors the attempt would fail and the associated data would be lost due to the limitations discussed above. This would leave the remaining space after 4 Gigabytes as wasted space. As can be appreciated, this drawback defeats one of the main purposes of the innovation of DVD technology, which is increased storage capacity.
In view of the foregoing, what is needed is a method and system for enabling the recording of data files on a rewritable DVD disc without the limitations imposed by the 4 Gigabyte physical boundary.